(3 of 12)
(June 22, 11.30am)
Phone call for Landon Donovan. It's Bayer Leverkusen on the line. When can you come back? Four years after the Germans kicked them around the pitch, the US demonstrated that it belongs here. None so more than Donovan — the Leverkusen reject — who toyed with Christian Ziege in the first half, and, but for Kahn's spectacular keeping, would have put the US ahead. The good news is that the joke's over — the US is going to kick some butt and take names in the next 10 y ears. Sure, sure, America has been all hat and no cattle, as they say in the West, since its surprising performance at the cup in 1994. But this team clearly demonstrates the need for a pro league to develop a talent pool that can get through such a grueling schedule. Bruce Arena used 18 field players in his mix-and match lineup, and his selection of MLS veterans, even the unfortunate Jeff Agoos, was pivotal to this team's success. Oddly enough, the MLS stands to suffer, as European teams swoop down on phenoms such as DaMarcus Beasley and revelations such as Pablo Mastroeni, a Premiership player if ever there was one.
Germany proved nothing if not reliable: It has lived off its air force for the entire tournament, and Ballack's header off a Ziege corner was right out of their textbook. They are probably praying they face the shorter Koreans, rather than Spain, in the semi.
England Outclassed
(June 22, 9am)
"Let's go find a Brazilian pub and 'ave a ruck, you know, sort it out..." The English lads were walking dejectedly through SoHo in the dawn's early light, and those of us in their proximity who had taken delight in Brazil's emphatic outclassing of England chose silent discretion as the better part of valor. Not that they were serious, of course. These were "new lads," Beckham boys, ironically intoning the hard-man mantras of the past as in a Guy Ritchie movie. But no matter what progress the British media claims Beckham has made in shedding the worst instincts of English masculinity, out on the football field they still looked like England. Quick and strong, but no match for the skill and vision of Brazil — even after the referee had finally stepped in and done Nicky Butt's job, which was to neutralize Ronaldhino. Warned you all about him, foraging for the ball deep behind Ronaldo and Revaldo and relishing nothing more than running it into a packed defense, as he did to set up Rivaldo's equalizer. The jheri-curled wonder managed to win the game for Brazil in the first 60 minutes, before that incomprehensible red card. David Seaman will, sadly, spend years studying the video of Ronaldhino's exquisite curling free kick that dropped out of the sky and into the top right corner of his goal, wondering whether things would have turned out different if he'd stayed on his line. But Brazil took the third-R's ejection into their stride, maintaining their dominance by passing the ball around and creating space, playing it out of defense rather than hoofing it upfield, attacking till the 85th minute with Roberto Carlos covering every inch of the pitch at breakneck speed, and always making England look vulnerable despite their extra man. England had scored the early goal demanded by their game-plan — a wonderful opportunist effort by Michael Owen punishing a poor first touch by Lucio — and the Brazilian defense always looked decidedly shaky in the middle (Heskey always had more time to turn than he'd ever get in the Premiership.) But they never managed to stop Brazil stroking the ball around the midfield, which was their only chance of victory. England went as far as it deserved to go in these finals; hopefully FIFA will turn Ronaldhino's red card into a yellow so that we're not deprived of the spectacle of him applying his skills all the way to the trophy.
Valiant England Lacked Midfield Flair
Okay, Okay, England sucked in the second half. But not in the first. After
Owen scored, they played some of their best football of the tournament,
using Heskey well, and, had Beckham not bottled out of a tackle in the
last minute of the half, they would have gone in a goal up, and it would
have been Brazil making adjustments. When England came out for the
second half they looked busted, and so they were. Throughout the
tournament, their lack of creativity in midfield let them down, but even
they cannnot have imagined that it would be Seaman who made the crucial
mistake. Mind you, that was some free kick.
Fire the Ref
Knew there was some reason I continued watching the Cup after France's ouster... Turns out the English side was as overrated and hyped as Beckham's "let's shut up about it, shall we?" coif. Though Brazil wasn't necessarily overpowering — and certainly not the death-on-studs past sides have been — the English could just never fully get into the match. Owen (even I gotta love that Englisher) scores on a defensive boner that probably caused Bill S. to apply for Brazilian citizenship, and that was all she wrote for England. The Ronaldhino-Rivaldo combo was pretty straight ahead, and Ronnie's free kick was a master piece that Zidane probably wouldn't mind calling his own. I was a bit surprised that the English threat remained approximative even after the scandalous red card reduced Brazil to 10, but having witnessed the never-say-die steel of English sides in the past (I still have nightmares about the Manchester United-Bayern Munich Champions' League final...), I couldn't bring myself to exhale till the incompetent referee whistled the end. How to explain it all? England just didn't seem to be at its top today — sometimes you feel like a nut; sometimes you don't.
Meanwhile, in addition to the other considerable house cleaning that the corruption-sclerotic FIFA must attend to is the horrific level of officiating that even Pele has called "alarming" at this level. Today's ref — the same, don'tcha know, who decided to become Player Of the Game in the France-Uruguay match — shouldn't be allowed to cut grass, much less reign over it. Ronaldinho's foul on Mills was ugly to see, but just as clearly unintentional — he got ball, rolled off it, and nailed ankle. Fair enough to suspect he didn't exactly tread softly once he hit tibia, but I don't think it constituted the kind of attack that merits instant red. Still, why expect any better from Mr. Ramos Rizo today than we saw during the first round (which is best described as "sub-sucky"?). The man shouldn't be in Asia at all, and the fact he is — and that folks like Pele feel compelled to lament his kind — is a testament to FIFA's idiot selection policy. Ditto the Jamaican referee who entirely changed the Brazil-Belgium match with his stunning ineptitude. If we all understand the regional nature of qualification for teams, it's less clear why FIFA insists on regional quotas for referees. Why invite an incompetent from Mexico when you might have 10 more qualified candidates from another country, or region? The supposed "fairness" of quotas in officiating evaporates once the succession of errors begins on the pitch. If FIFA insists on quotas, why not go the whole hog: let's create official minimum for women referees (which'd be a very good idea, actually), for the lame, blind, criminally demented, and insane. After all, what's good for FIFA leadership should be good for the folks in black.